Knives in the Night

by Nathan A. Thompson

  With a beautiful, dangerous woman who seemed torn between flirting with me or threatening me to make sure I respect her boundaries.

  Or both, I thought with a terrifying revelation, she could just be giving me two contradicting signals on purpose. That might even be normal, for all I know.

  So either I risked waking them up by speaking, and possibly get stabbed, or I risked opening my eyes and accidentally seeing one of them changing, and accidentally get stabbed.

  Go with the second one, Teeth spoke up, same risk, better payoff.

  I sighed, and reached out with the mindlink.

  Breena, I messaged, trying the Satellite I was more familiar with first, are you awake?

  No answer. No impression whatsoever. Which meant that she was still sleeping.

  Anahita, I risked messaging next, hoping that she had grown comfortable enough with the mindlink to use it more often. Are you awake? Are you decent? Are you going to be mad if I open my eyes?

  Once again, no impression.

  Which should mean that she was still asleep.

  But then again, Anahita had already become notoriously difficult for refusing to give clear impressions of any kind.

  “Anahita,” I sighed quietly, “I really don’t want to wake you, but I need to know if it’s alright for me to get up. Are you already awake, and decent?”

  “Yes,” a voice whispered, sounding only a few inches away from my ear. “Why do you ask?”

  Once again, I restrained myself from jumping out of my skin in surprise.

  “Apologies,” the smooth voice said, now sounding much farther away. I turned to see that Stell’s local Satellite was sitting on her own bed, a good eight feet away, fully dressed, but without the scarf covering her face. Her dark, unbound hair fell across her shoulders. She smirked at me with a playful look in her eyes.

  How did you—I started to ask, then stopped. The woman was clearly testing me again.

  She wanted me to figure out how she could speak right next to my ear one moment, and then be eight feet away from me the very next moment.

  Fine, I decided, I’ll play along.

  I started to answer out loud, but I could see Breena’s tiny form sleeping peacefully on a pillow nearby, so I answered via the mindlink.

  Ventriloquism isn’t supposed to work like that, I sent to her through the mindlink. Her face became even more still, which was all I needed. At least on Earth it isn’t. You can only make yourself sound farther away, not closer. But you already surprised me with how quickly and quietly you could move earlier, so you wouldn’t have bothered to impress me with the same kind of trick so soon. How did you manage to throw your voice like that?

  “Is that your final answer?” the mysterious woman whispered quietly, her voice passing smoothly into my ear, caressing my hearing with its softness.

  Soooo hot, Teeth moaned idiotically in my mind.

  But the way she spoke now only confirmed my suspicions. It reminded me of how she had spoken to a plaza-sized crowd yesterday, without raising her voice above a whisper.

  And my final question, I replied, meeting her grin with a smirk of my own. How did you do what I know you did?

  “You win,” she said, and I caught the glee rolling under the subdued tone of her voice. “On one level, at least. You can recognize what I did, which pleases me. But you did not figure out how I did it.”

  Which also pleases you, I sent through the mindlink.

  “Indeed,” Anahita answered, still whispering out loud in a way that let me hear her but wouldn’t wake the tiny woman sleeping right next to her. “You cannot figure out all of my mysteries easily, but you are smart enough to admit it. Your intelligence and competence is impressive. Sometimes,” she added, and I caught both annoyance and playfulness in that last word.

  My grin broadened.

  The more capable the man, the cleverer the woman has to be to make full use of him, I said as confidently as I could. Something tells me you just might be up to the challenge, though.

  Anahita grinned broadly at me.

  “And with that,” the almond-skinned woman whispered, “I am no longer mostly mad at you. But we should get a head start on the sun, and begin our day now. Breena,” she said, looking at the tiny pink form on the pillow, “it’s time to wake up.”

  “Don’t wanna,” the tiny fairy mumble-squeaked in reply.

  “Little Bree,” her fellow Satellite urged, “there is work to be done.”

  “Five more minutes,” the little sprite burbled sleepily. “Just five more minutes. Then save the world.”

  “Breena,” I said loudly, clearing my throat.

  Her reaction was immediate.

  “What-Ack!” the tiny fairy squawked as she bounced into the air, and then tumbled back down in a confused jumble of limbs, wings, and spiky pink hair. “Oh-my-gosh-I’m-sorry-Wes-I-didn’t-mean-to-do-it-again-I-could-have-sworn-I-slept-in-a-different-bed-this-time-please-don’t-let-your-dragon-eat-me!”

  She rolled further into the blankets, still trying to explain and apologize. Eventually, though, she managed to trap herself under the quilts, and her voice became too muffled to hear.

  Hold on, Breena sent as she stopped struggling. I got this. Gimme a moment.

  Ten seconds of struggling and cranky squeaking later, my bonded familiar emerged from her impromptu cocoon.

  “Alright, Wes,” Breena announced, holding out her hands and taking a deep breath to compose herself. “Before we begin, let me figure out how bad I screwed up this time on my own.” She looked down at herself.

  “Okay…normal sprite-size, that’s very good…still clothed, thank Icons I didn’t subconsciously change again…Wes is all the way over there, and doesn’t look too frustrated, which is also really good…I’m…in my own bed?”

  Her little head tilted to the side, clearly confused.

  “You’re fine, Breena,” I said calmly. “You haven’t done anything wrong. We were just trying to help you wake up. And thank you for respecting my boundaries last night.”

  My bonded sprite let out the longest breath I had ever seen her hold. For a moment I worried that she would deflate like a balloon.

  “Well, thank goodness!” she said, immediately sighing again in relief. “You have no idea how hard I have been working on this, Wes. And I’ve been having to learn everything completely from scratch. Which is par for the course,” she grumped, “because you’re so completely different from the last bazillion Challengers!” she threw up her hands. “But that doesn’t matter, because I did it! I totally figured out how to avoid aggravating this massive holding tank of frustration you’re carrying around while you somehow function like a normal human being. Because I am a good fairy. And a good Satellite. And a good familiar-friend-whatever else we are, because my primary body wasn’t completely clear on how we were supposed to proceed from here! There,” she huffed again, “now I feel better. I’m ready to start the day. Speaking of which…” She glanced around suspiciously, noting the darkness all around us. “What time is it?”

  “It’s not dawn yet, Breena,” Anahita whispered gently, “you know that. Check your internal sense.”

  The tiny woman visibly wilted.

  “I was good all night,” she said with a trembling lip, “and I still have to wake up early? For the third night in a row?”

  “Sorry, Bree,” I said, reaching into my storage, “but if you’re hungry, I still have your cookies.”

  I carefully tossed one white chocolate and Macadamia nut-dotted treat, and the little fairy brightened instantly.

  “Meep!” she squeaked happily, growing just large enough to catch the cookie with both hands. The delighted pixie immediately tore into the treat with furious nibbles. I went ahead and tossed her a second one, which she caught without looking, still nibbling away at the first cookie.

  “Anahita?” I asked, offering her one of the many circular treats Guineve and my mother had teamed up to bake me. “I’ve got plenty of these, if you’re hun
gry, too.”

  The dark-haired woman shrugged and held out her hand. She caught the cookie easily, sniffed it, and took a careful bite.

  “Interesting…” she said after finishing her first bite. “I can taste Guineve’s touch, but also several extra layers of sweetness…is this the vaunted American Earthborn way of making sweets?”

  “It is!” Breena squeaked happily as she finished her first cookie. “Can’t you taste all the extra healthiness?”

  Anahita blinked, clearly unsure how to respond to that comment, but Breena had already moved to nibbling away on her second cookie.

  “At any rate,” the dusk-skinned woman continued, “once we finish our American breakfast—”

  “Not an American breakfast,” I corrected, “not without bacon it isn’t.”

  “Once we finish this fairy take on American cuisine,” Anahita amended, rolling her eyes, “we should plan out the day, make the poison, and teach you how to manage your signature spells.”

  “Not more teaching!” Breena wailed, actually taking a break from her cookie long enough to do so.

  “You’ll get overtime pay,” I said, tossing three more cookies so that they would land next to her, and trusting that she wouldn’t leave any bed crumbs.

  “Contract signed and accepted!” the little fairy squeaked, juggling what was left of her current cookie so that she could catch the other three with her hands and mouth.

  Should have thought of this kind of arrangement ages ago, she mumbled as she went back to nibbling.

  Anahita grinned, and I felt her amusement filter through the silent room.

  CHAPTER 28: TAKING NOTES

  Anahita went over the signature spells first. I thought that was rather generous, until I realized that creating the poison might involve all sorts of unpleasant experiences for me later.

  We went with Air first, because Breena and Anahita both knew the Ideal well, and because we may not have time to straighten out every one of my six Ideals—especially Blood magic, since that was a Primal Ideal that even Breena didn’t have nearly as much experience with.

  It quickly became clear that I wouldn’t be able to activate all the modifications that Anahita had added to her single Ideal—even if I just focused on one spell.

  Instead, we performed something that both Satellites referred to as shared signatures.

  Meaning they would teach me to construct a new spell, specifically one that became the sum of numerous other spells I already knew and could perform easily.

  The first spell we adjusted was my Wind Armor spell.

  I had to work to remember what it did, because the benefits had been so subtle I had forgotten how and when they were helping me. But basically, it deflected ranged attacks, helped slightly with melee attacks, and adjusted the air currents directly around me.

  Oh! Anahita had said, finally using the mindlink, and actually sounding excited. I love this one! Let me show you what you can do with it!

  This was a spell I actually hadn’t done any signature work with, so in some ways, it would be the easiest for us to modify.

  If I could stop kicking myself for forgetting about it long enough.

  But the nature of the spell made it even easier to add effects to. When it came to it, I was just wrapping my body in a friendly current of air that tried to protect me from danger.

  Therefore, the best way to upgrade it was to have it wrap me in more air, and have the air do more independent things.

  And since I knew a fair number of Air spells now, I had plenty of templates from which to choose.

  I also could use them all easily, thanks to my immense mana pool and regeneration rate, and the benefits I had gained from the Path of the Archmage. Even the ones I learned at the Practitioner level.

  I tried not to get too excited, but with a bit of hard work, this spell might become one of my most powerful tools yet.

  It took thirty minutes, but by then Wind Armor had become Gale Cloak.

  I cast the spell immediately, and found that I could control the intensity of the air around me even more easily than I could with Wind Armor. It became still and calm immediately.

  But my next enemies were going to be in for a hell of a surprise.

  My next spell, Quick Step, was a lot harder to figure out, as it was just a straightforward enhancement to my Speed and Dexterity. That was useful, but it made it harder for me to figure out what to add to it, especially now that my new Gale Cloak did so much.

  Anahita and Breena both agreed, so we went ahead and moved on to another Ideal, since we were short on time.

  We moved to Earth next, which resulted in a massive headache, because both of my spells were simple augmentations.

  So I went ahead and just learned a new signature spell.

  Battlefield Wounds.

  The spell combined most of my other Earth spells into one that completely turned the terrain into a sinking, surging pit full of sharp stone spikes that thrashed about inside of it. It wouldn’t do more than seriously hinder my enemies, but that was the entire point behind almost every non-defensive Earth spell I knew anyway.

  Now, though, I could cast most of them all at once, and, since it was a signature spell, it would be faster, more powerful, and almost as cheap.

  That was surprisingly quick, Anahita mused, as if she was using the mindlink to hear herself talk.

  Yup, Breena sighed morosely, can’t wait to see what he’ll do with it.

  It was easy to figure out, after experimenting with my Air spells, I explained. Now onto the next Ideal. If we have time, I added, trying to be polite to the two women teaching me.

  We actually do not, Anahita sent regretfully, we must work on the poison now, so that we have time to put other plans in motion. But thank you for your aid in this next step. It may cost you.

  By that you mean you’re going to need someone to test the poison on, I replied dryly, and that you probably won’t be able to risk it on anyone but me. Both because of the potency of your concoction, and because we can’t risk exposing our presence here until we’re ready to strike.

  That is unfortunately accurate, Anahita said softly. I know we just met, and that you have already aided me, but—

  “I am here for you, Stell,” I interrupted out loud, addressing the Satellite by her primary body’s name. “Both for you and your people. The cost does not scare me.”

  The beautiful assassin flinched slightly. I felt her scrutinize me through the mindlink.

  I left it open and bare, so that she could see me honestly. I felt her shudder again, this time through the mindlink, and then she relaxed visibly.

  “You are very honest,” the assassin said softly, “thank you. Again.”

  I would have reached out to her, but something told me that for all her playfulness, she was not yet ready to be touched.

  “What do we need to do first?” I asked, looking around the room. I didn’t see any suspicious vials lying around.

  Then again, there was a figurative mountain of museum artifacts cluttering up the floor, so I couldn’t be certain.

  “The last of my poison is kept here. I had almost taken it with me, since I was not expecting to escape from Tajam, but that would have only ensured that any unused would fall into my enemy’s hands. And I could not bring myself to use more than I needed to kill my people’s oppressors. Not with poison, at any rate,” she muttered darkly.

  She gracefully stepped over a few figurines and bent over to reach inside a large, wide-brimmed vase.

  Not now, Teeth, I warned, carefully looking away from the beautiful woman about to poison me.

  But I didn’t say anyth—ohhh, dammmnnnnn. Wait, what are we worried about right now? What did I miss?

  My peripheral vision caught the lithe, dark-haired woman walking back over to me, mouth smirking and eyes twinkling.

  “Here is the poison,” she said with her smooth, challenging voice, holding a small box in both her hands. “Thank you for your patience.”

&nbs
p; Wait, Teeth spoke up again. Wait, seriously, I think I just figured it out. We shouldn’t ogle a woman who is about to poison us. Is that it? Did I get it right?

  That was my concern, yes, I admitted as I worked to keep my face neutral. We shouldn’t ogle her at all until we’re sure she won’t kill us for it.

  Oops, Teeth said guiltily.

  Anahita opened the box, eyes still twinkling. The container reminded me of my mother’s jewelry box, with individualized compartments separating different items.

  Except, instead of bracelets, rings, and earrings, there were pouches, vials, and a small cluster of suspicious-looking mushrooms.